


Ain't No Grave (Can Hold My Body Down)

by BloodEmCee



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 23:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodEmCee/pseuds/BloodEmCee
Summary: Unohana should not be here, and yet she is, with skin that feels just as silk as it always has.





	Ain't No Grave (Can Hold My Body Down)

**Author's Note:**

> I'll die mad about what happened to Unohana tbh. I don't really know what's going on with her here. She's some weird soul-revenant or something, idk.

Days pass slow. Forever. They go on, and on, and on, and Isane cannot bear to consider what the others must think of her. They have _all_ lost, by nature of what they are. Shinigami are not creatures given to happy lives. That's just the way of things. On some level, Isane had accepted this before, and she'd understood, even though she hadn't _known_ the truth of it until Kenpachi came back snarling, triumphant, and Retsu--

\--Isane could feel the moment it _happened._ She'd been listening to Soifon grouse about her second, and then there'd been _nothing_ , spiraling between Isane's eyes and blinding her. For three agonizing would-be heartbeats, Isane felt as if she were being unmade, as if every particle of her was being scrounged and scraped out of existence, turned inside out and thrown to the winds, ashes scattering, gone-!

_Unohana-Taichou,_

(Soi Fon doesn't tell Isane, of course, that she did not just think the name, but she screamed it, in a moment of wild agony that tore into Soifon, a reflection of the captain's own losses thrown back at her.) 

When it's over, there is business to attend to, and the Soul Society moves on, while Isane grinds to a stop. 

Of course, none of her collapse is in public, save for the initial moment, but the others must pick up on it. Isane carries the weight, becomes more protective of her sister, finds herself raising her voice, finds so many things about herself, because she should not have ever had to _grieve,_ especially when Zaraki snarls and smiles like he's some kind of unstoppable _thing_ , and sometimes when she looks at him, Isane finds herself wishing she could dash him to pieces, but if he could take down Unohana then there is no chance for her, none at all. 

So she grows, and she quiets, and she does her job, even as the others mourn ( _token mourning,_ Isane thinks) and move on. 

Until the night comes where her window slides open, and there are eyes there. Isane jumps up, because she is timid in ways but she is not going to be put down in her own room.

Light focuses. 

Smiling eyes wrinkle up in joy. 

"There you are," Unohana says, and she shouldn't be there, but she is there and she's very, very real. Isane's fingers curl. Twitch. 

"I thought you were-"

"I was," and there's some edge to Unohana's voice that Isane hasn't heard before. 

"But not anymore?"

"Not anymore." 

Her smile is thin. For a reason Isane cannot place, it makes her think of right angles and knifeblades. Isane eases closer. This must be a trick. It must be.

But Unohana's body feels the same as it always has. 

"Retsu," Isane murmurs, a quiet name between them, and Unohana brushes lips against her forehead and whispers _Yachiru_ against her skin. Isane breathes her in. 

"Yachiru."

"My real name." Lips brush firmer over skin. Isane cannot believe what she is seeing. Who she is feeling, underneath trembling palms. 

Unohana should not be here, and yet she is, with skin that feels just as silk as it always has. Isane grazes her lips and tongue over Unohana's solitary scar; there's the flex of a stronger form underneath her, and Unohana's touch is hungry, desperate. Before Isane can get familiar again, Unohana eases her back and _oh,_ Isane arches up and bites down on her hand because Unohana devours her, a starving woman led to feast. Lips and tongue and fingers and there's a graze of teeth against her thigh, her hip, claiming bites; this is more vicious than anything Unohana has ever given her before and Isane does not think of anything but _feeling_.

This is how it should be. 

Isane reaches out, tugs Unohana against her, returns the bites and drags of warmth up chest-collarbone-throat until they're kissing, until Unohana is hissing her name, someone so patient and sweet and kind coming undone under Isane's touch over and over and over again and it is 

_perfect._

Unohana whispers against her skin: _come with me - they cannot find us there_

Isane thinks of Soifon for a moment, who must have been given the same choice all those years ago. 

They need her, don't they? But Kiyone is strong, and-

"I will," Isane answers before she can think it over too much. She's given everything else over love before. Tables turn. Unohana grazes lips against her throat, and then there is warmth, swelling between Isane's bones. A _tug_ to the deepest part of her spirit. Her vision spins. 

"Thank you," Unohana whispers. "Thank you."


End file.
